


words like nets

by Katbelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Hopeful Ending, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Episode: s15e08 Our Father Who Aren't in Heaven, Somewhat, There are a couple of spoilers for 15x08 but this was written before the episode aired, accidental love confession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21783088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katbelle/pseuds/Katbelle
Summary: It happens without him consciously noticing. One minute he's ranting at Cas, tearing into him for being an idiot and taking stupid risks, the next everyone is staring at him in shocked silence and he's not sure why. In hindsight, it was probably always going to go something like that. But he doesn't have to like it."Damnit, Cas, I love you, you can't keep doing this shit. This is fucking ridiculous, you need to stop behaving like an idiot. Or a child. An idiot child, Cas,Jesus."
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 4
Kudos: 256





	words like nets

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally an answer to a tweet asking about who'd be the first to confess their love, Dean or Cas, and how. It somehow turned into a thread-fic of over 2k words, so I thought that I might as well polish this and post it here.

**words like nets**

_Words are like nets - we hope they'll cover what we mean, but we know they can't possibly hold that much joy, or grief, or wonder._  
Jodi Picoult

Dean hasn't stopped pacing since he'd stormed into the bunker, angry and ranting, with Sam and Eileen at his heels and an irritated Cas trailing behind them. He can't help it; their latest foray into the realm of Things You Could Possibly Use to Defeat Chuck went way better than expected, but just as well might have not. Working on an unexpected tip from Adam and Michael, they ventured into a crypt that contained the Book of Raziel. Raziel not being an angel, despite what numerous human religious scholar had thought – as Cas helpfully explained on the way – but really just a word that meant 'secret of God'. It appeared Gabriel stole the book from Heaven when he ran away from home all those eons ago, and Dean was ready to thank the archangel for his kleptomaniac tendencies.

That was until they actually arrived at the place and the crypt turned out to be heavily guarded. With Enochian magic. Potentially lethal Enochian magic, archangel-level Enochian magic, which meant that Cas was the only one who could even attempt to get inside, but even he had to hope that Gabriel's little traps would not deem him a threat and disintegrate him on the spot. Or something. One never knew with Gabriel.

Dean wanted to wait, take a break, regroup and consult Rowena. That was the smart thing to do. But Cas decided that there was no time and just went inside, no warning or preparation, like a complete idiot, almost giving Dean a heart attack in the process.

And nothing happened. Cas got the book, got out and they went back home, with Dean silently fuming in the driver's seat and Cas translating the Enochian from the back. It turned out that the book contained a lot of God's personal details and observations, but exactly zero useful information about anything whatsoever.

Cas had risked his life to get the completely useless Very Secret Diary of Chuck Shurley, and Dean lost it then.

"That was idiotic!" Dean says, for possibly the seventeenth time. From the corner of his eye he can see Sam rolling his. "And unbelievably reckless. And for what?" He gestures at the offending book, lying in the middle of a table like a mockery. "I didn't need to know that Chuck and Eve did it, did _you_?"

Cas has his arms crossed over his chest and doesn't grace Dean with a response. Good. Dean's not looking for one, he just has to get all this anger and frustration and fear out of his system.

"Dean..." Eileen starts, because she hasn't known Dean for long enough to know that it's better to just let him at it, that if he keeps it in it will be worse for everyone in the long run.

"You could have died! For something utterly pointless!" He resists the urge to tug at his hair. "Damnit, Cas, I love you, you can't keep doing this shit. This is fucking ridiculous, you need to stop behaving like an idiot. Or a child. An idiot child, Cas, _Jesus_. There is more at stake here, okay, we need to be smart about this. And fuck Michael for hyping this thing up," he glares at the book, "and fuck Gabriel too for ever thinking this was worth something. Probably took it as a joke, that asshole. Your entire family are dicks, Cas, have I ever mentioned that?"

He finishes with a huff and looks around, and frowns. Huh. He notices Cas staring, shocked, eyes wide and mouth not exactly hanging open, but it's close. To the side of them, Eileen is trying to contain a smile and Sam is full-on smirking, not bothering to pretend. Dean blinks. Blinks again.

"What?" he asks, baffled. The atmosphere has changed around them; the heaviness of it and the silence are no longer due to anger, something's happened and he's not sure what.

Cas continues staring. If it were anyone else, Dean would say their brain has encountered a critical system failure. But this is _Cas_. So... no? Unlikely. He's an angel. Angel brains don't freeze and need to reboot. Unless the magic of the crypt--

"What?" he repeats the question, but he puts enough worry into it this time to convey a different meaning.

"Yeah, Dean," Sam quips from the side, "what?"

Dean glares at his brother and makes a vague gesture in Cas' direction. If anything, Sam's smirk gets bigger. Dean has no idea what Sam is smirking about. Eileen coughs very suddenly and in a very fake way, and he just knows she's trying to mask a laugh. Sam throws her a grin and Dean would be tempted to roll his eyes if this weren't annoyingly done at his expense. Or something. He's fairly certain that Eileen is laughing at him, but still unsure as to why. The story of his life.

Cas still says nothing. Shit. Is something wrong with him? Dean knew, he just knew that his latest apparently no-consequence stupid stint was too good to be true. There always are consequences, usually apparent _post factum_ and so dire that you'd want to kill yourself if you weren't dead or dying or bound to die already. 

He looks over at Sam and the expression on his face must be helpless enough to make Sam stop smirking. But he doesn't turn to Dean; no, he turns to Cas and raises one eyebrow in a silent question that Dean can't comprehend. Cas purses his lips in response, a somewhat adorable pout to which Sam jerks his head to the left, away from Dean but towards the main door. Cas nods, slowly, as if the motion was being forced out of him.

Dean is certain he's going to get whiplash from how fast he's turning his head to follow this conversation. And it _is_ a conversation; Sam and Cas just had a full-on silent movie-style exchange that was perfectly understandable to both of them.

To everyone except Dean, it turns out when Sam glances at Eileen and she nods as well and smiles at Cas, very encouragingly. She and Sam get up at the same time and move first past Dean and then past Cas.

Sam actually squeezes Cas' shoulder on his way out of the library and towards the stairs.

"We're going to the closest Starbucks," Sam tells them. "I'll call in an hour to ask if it's okay to come back."

Dean frowns. Sure, maybe things between him and Cas are still a little rocky, but what is Sam expecting? That they're going to have an argument so heated and terrible that they'll beat each other bloody? He's not _that_ bad, Christ. A memory of a bloodied Cas lying on the floor with a blade sticking out of a book next to his head flashes before Dean's eyes and he mentally corrects himself, not that bad _anymore_. "Why wouldn't it--"

"I'll. Call," Sam repeats, emphasising every word and giving Dean a very meaningful look whose meaning flies directly over Dean's head.

With one last pat to Cas' shoulder - and a sweet smile from Eileen, and when did those two become so tight, what the hell - Sam and Eileen leave. The sound of the door closing behind them echoes in the silence of the bunker. Almost as loud as it was when the door closed behind Cas all those weeks ago. It similarly fills Dean with a sense of dread, but also, strangely, anticipation. And, okay, he feels way too sober to try and unpack _that_.

Well, no, actually. It's Cas' gaze on him that inspires the latter.

Dean swallows. The silence stretches and inches to the awkward territory.

"Cas--" he starts, but Cas interrupts him.

"Did you mean that?"

"... what?"

"Did you mean what you said," Cas asks again, "or is it another one of your 'talking but not thinking' situations?"

Dean winces, but feels it was deserved. He's said some regrettable things that cannot be unsaid, and he'll take Cas not trusting his words over Cas thinking he means every word he says any day. Especially since he's still unsure himself. He'd _like_ to say that he didn't mean a word of what he'd said that day, but the words had to have come from somewhere. And if he'd thought them then perhaps a part of him did mean them.

"Of course I meant that," he assures Cas. "Cas, you're important, you're important to _us_ ," he adds for emphasis, proud of himself, "and you can't go around taking stupid risks like that."

He smiles in what he hopes is a friendly and reassuring, but simultaneously strict, manner. Cas is family. Cas can't keep risking his life on a hunch and a half-hearted tip from Michael.

Cas looks at him as if he's being purposefully dumb. "That's not the part I was asking about."

Dean frowns. What else did he say...? "You mean the part about me ripping the rest of your feathers out if you do something like that again? 'Cause yeah, that one I definitely didn't mean, it's not like I can even see--"

"No," Cas interrupts him. "Not that one either."

Dean draws a blank, then, and Cas is being particularly unhelpful. But he's looking at Dean with an intensity that Dean almost forgot he possessed – something that's been missing for so long and which was infinitely better than the sad, dejected looks he'd been sporting for... the past God knows how long, actually – and Dean feels like he's being judged on something here, that there's a lot at stake, a make-it-or-break-it moment if there ever was one.

If only it was a little bit clearer what was going on.

Dean rakes his brain and tries to replay the entire conversation from the moment they entered the bunker. He was pissed, Cas was annoyed but unhurt, Eileen was awkward around their drama and Sam was trying to make Dean see reason.

Cas was the only one who could have gone into the crypt and touched the book, Sam argued. It was reasonable, had to be done, and he was _fine_ , Dean, by the way. Look. Present. Safe. Alive.

But Dean didn't want to see reason. All he saw was the image of Cas, still and dead on the ground, imprint of wings burnt into the stone beneath him, that his mind was so helpful to provide for him the moment Cas announced his intention to go inside. So what that it didn't happen. It could have. Cas could have died there and then, died _again_ , and Dean loved him, and that was unacceptable behaviour. Which is what Dean told him. That Dean loved him and Cas couldn't just keep doing life-threatening shit like that.

"I'm not sure what--" he starts saying, but the sentence dies on his lips when the full realisation of what he's said hits him. "OH."

He expects to freak out. He doesn't. It's a momentary shock, his heart stops for a second, but then resumes its beat, as steady as always, as if this wasn't an Earth-shattering revelation. As if this was normal, as if this has been a part of his life, a part of his emotional makeup for so long that it was not worthy of being noted now. Just the background radiation of his life. Which, he realises a second later, it is, and he's flooded with acceptance. Relief, almost. Oh. Oh, of course. Of course it is.

Cas must read something else from him. It really is unfair that he's capable of pulling such a heartbroken expression while at the same time remaining perfectly composed.

"You didn't mean it," Cas surmises. He nods to himself, as if having got confirmation to some long-held belief, and smiles bitterly. It reminds Dean of a 2014 that never came to be.

"No," he says quickly when faced with a Cas as bitter as he'd promised himself he would never allow. His knee-jerk reaction to Cas' conclusions is to deny them, but he immediately mentally kicks himself, because he knows what he means and he knows that Cas hears something else.

"It's fine, Dean," Cas says, voice steady and calm, but Dean's known him for long enough to know that it isn't fine. That he isn't.

"No, it's not."

Cas doesn't even argue and that in itself tells Dean a lot. "It is what it is."

"I didn't mean to say it," Dean tries to clarify and the tight press of Cas' lips tells him that he's failing miserably. This is precisely why Dean does the punching while Sam and Cas do the talking. Words are inadequate in his grasp.

"I'm aware--"

Dean cuts in, unwilling to hear what Cas thinks he is aware of. "I did mean the words though."

Cas opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind. He just looks at Dean, his expression once more unreadable. The ball is still in Dean's court.

Dean wets his lips. "I meant what I said," he says slowly, "even if I didn't mean to say it like that. That's not..."

Cas looks at him almost expectantly, and that gives Dean the push to continue.

"That's not how I wanted it to go," he admits.

And cringes. This is why he doesn't do talking, and especially talking about his feelings. He always has this idea in his mind, of what he'd like to say and how to phrase it, smart and beautiful words rest at the tip of his tongue, but what actually makes it past his lips is always awkward and sounds stilted and makes him want to take it all back and pretend he's never uttered a word. But unsaying things isn't possible, and just like he can't make Cas unhear their last non-argument, he can't make him unhear _this_ , and he braces himself for a demanding "well then how did you want it to go?", because Cas has the annoying habit of digging and pushing exactly when Dean wants him to the least, but he also deserves an answer, if only because of how much of an asshole Dean's been to him lately.

He's working on that, but again - unsaying and unhearing.

Cas cocks his head to the side and says nothing, merely studying Dean for a long and silent while, and Dean tries to contain his momentary flash of panic. What if Cas says nothing? What if Cas says something kind, but gently dismissive? What if he says he's moved on and Dean is about two (three, six, seven) years too late?

What if he just asks Dean if they could please ignore what's been said and try to go back to how it used to be?

Fair's fair, after all. But for the first time since their tentative truce after Texas, Dean realises how impossibly painful it has to be to ignore some things that have been said and that there's no going back from some confessions. Whether you meant to say them or not; the words were there, so some part of you meant them the way they escaped.

Cas bites down on his lower lip, worries it between his teeth, and Dean is strangely mesmerised by the sight. He doesn't think he's ever seen Cas do that before, such a nervous human tick, or maybe he has but just wasn't paying attention then, not the way he is paying attention _now_ , or--

"--Dean?"

He frowns and drags his eyes away from Cas' lips, tries to focus on the angel's eyes - which isn't Goddamn better - and says a very eloquent, "Huh?"

The corner of Cas' mouth twitches. Dean hopes it's because he finds Dean's current state amusing, not because he is losing patience. Not that Dean would fault him; if he looked at himself from an outside perspective, he'd be tired of his own bullshit too. Hell, he sometimes already was.

"You wanted it to go a certain way," Cas says. It's a statement, not a question, and leaves Dean wondering if Cas _had_ asked about it when Dean was busy staring at his lips or if Cas was merely informing him of a conclusion reached.

That statement is both true to an extent and completely false at the same time; Dean _has_ thought about it, has probably thought about it more than was healthy and sane, but he mostly imagined the worst situations which could spur him to declare his funny feelings, and hated and dismissed every single one of them. He never got as far as knowing how he'd want it to go, he was too busy deciding which options he most certainly didn't want to occur.

Like dying. Like rotting on the inside on a dirty barn floor. Like deciding to lock himself in a magic box.

Like fighting.

"Not really," he says and somehow manages to bite his tongue before 'I wasn't planning to at all' that presses on his lips makes it past them, small mercies, "but I know this wasn't it."

Perhaps he's soft and a hopeless romantic deep down in his soul, but he doesn't like this; words that like shouldn't sprout out of anger or mortal peril. They should be given, softly, with no threat of immediate demise hanging over you, simply because they could be. Simply because you wanted to give them, for no other reason than to see a smile.

Which is precisely why Dean never says that to anyone.

And Cas must somehow know how Dean feels and what he thinks, because he says, disarmingly frank, with an expression seemingly neutral, but not really neutral at all, just an overwhelming mix of everything because he's an angel and he's only been dealing with emotions for a grand total of about ten years, "I love you too, you know."

And the thing is, Dean does. He does and has had for years now, and it used to scare him and bewilder him and while it no longer does either of those, it will never cease to humble him. And it is pretty damn amazing.

Dean cracks a half-smile. "I know."

Cas huffs out a laugh, more amused than annoyed, and takes a small step forward. His eyes dart to Dean's lips for a moment - good to know Dean's not the only one affected here - before falling down. And the thing is, Cas isn't the type to look away in general; he takes on everything head-on, tall and proud, and he only ever looks away from Dean.

Dean dips his head and tries to catch Cas' eye, holds his gaze and forces him to bring his head up. Almost eleven years in between this now and that then, and the moment feels equally charged and monumental. Something is about to change here, too.

Dean reaches out. He brushes the tips of his fingers against the back of Cas' hand, trails the pads over the space between Cas' middle and ring fingers. A ghost of a touch. A whisper of a caress. And a promise of more, one day.

He's not sure what Sam was expecting to happen when he promised to call in an hour, but he knows it's not going to happen. Not today. Probably not tomorrow or even the day after that. One 'I love you' isn't going to magically fix all the crap they've said and done to each other over the years nor erase the piled up hurts and perceived and real betrayals. But it's a start of a new chapter, one in which they're hopefully on the same page about something, for once. All they can do is move forward and Dean has always found it easiest when he had a clear direction in sight.

So he smiles. And Cas, slowly, smiles back. 

And for now that's enough.


End file.
